This was at five hundred yards. If you will consider that I was shooting from our house across the meadow, across the railroad bridge, at a circle twenty inches in diameter (about the size of our largest pewter platter) you will understand my task. But I was fussed to begin with, for someone had taken my rifle from the rack, and I had therefore not blacked the sights, nor adjusted the sling, of the one that I hastily borrowed. As I came to the stand I was met by an artillery corporal, evidently a kind of super-coach, who curtly ordered me to do the one thing and the other, and hurried me to my place. I told him how the captain had wanted the sights set for this distance; I had put them so. "That doesn't go here," he said, readjusted them himself, and ordered me to lie down. He was so overbearing, and I was so uncertain of my rights, that I took my position and fired my shot. A miss! He blamed me severely, and in general treated me like the dirt under my feet. At my next shot, a poor two, he said, "There you go, thinking you know all about it, and jerking your trigger again." I said, "On the contrary, I'm not used to the pull of this trigger, and the gun went off before I expected." From that time on I paid no more attention to him, and perhaps from my manner he saw that it was just as well to let me alone; but he attacked the other man on this target, who feebly protested, and who made a wretched score. My score was coaxed along by our company coach, a nice chap named Haynes, who was most interested and sympathetic. As for me, the artilleryman vexed me so that I shot to kill _him_, and by imagining him at the target made a thirty-six. It was an entirely new sensation, to be so bedevilled by such a man, and to know that in wartime I could not reply. When at noon we were marched back to camp and dismissed I sought out Haynes and asked, "What is your opinion of that artillery coach?" Said he, "I'm going to speak to the captain about him." "Thanks," I said. "You'll save me the trouble." And when again I came back to the post in the afternoon, though the corporal was there, he was very quiet and good. This incident makes me doubt the value, for such volunteers as we, of the regular non-coms whom they hope to have here next year, if by that time the troops are off the border. What help could such an overbearing conceited drill-master, with no inkling of our difficulties or our point of view, give to such a squad as ours? Would he last a week out of hospital, or we a week out of arrest? No, give us a Plattsburg veteran of one camp as corporal, and appoint as sergeants those who have served two, and we shall come on faster. Further, more men would thus be trained for responsible positions.